Happy IPv6 day!
Today, June 8th is the day the major internet companies like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Verizon, Microsoft and a few others migrate to IPv6 for a 24 hour test. The migration to IPv6 will eventually be permanent as the number of addresses available for IPv4 is running low. Considering that there are about 4,000,000,000 IPv4 addresses, that is sort amazing.
IPv6 addresses will look substantially different than the IPv4 example used in the title of this post. A typical IPv6 address looks something like this: 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334. In 32 bit, that format can generate 340 undecillion unique number sets, or 340,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 written in non-scientific notation. Most new operating systems, routers, and switches come with IPv6 protocols installed. IPv4 and IPv6 can operate side by side and often do. That is the good news. The bad news; much if not all of the inside IP addressing schemes and subnetting will not work with IPv6. Even so, it may not be necessary to rebuild entire networks using IPv6 until some sort of major upgrade or replacement. IPv4 will work well into the future.
From a user standpoint, the transition should be transparent. For IT guys, the change means typing in a few extra digits when configuring an outside IP address. Networking bubbas may have their hands full.
One advantage, depending on one’s point of view, of IPv6 is that internal IP address schemes will not be needed, theoretically. Thus, for example, a toaster or other appliance can communicate over power line to the cable modem, which will then establish an IP tunnel to the toaster manufacturer or some other party of interest. Smart electric meters also have this capacity and use it to communicate directly with the utility company.
From the standpoint of IP streaming audio, IPv6 is more efficient than v4 in multicast operations. This will hopefully reduce latency somewhat in web streaming audio.
Great blog,twit,rss,broadcast stream you have. Generally you do think outside the “Box”. Please realize that multi-cast is not just audio. I would bet the farm that audio is a minority in multi-cast population intra-webs bandwidth. You may also want to look into the complexity of IP6 a little more and realize that broadcast vendors will adopt it just as slowly as they abandoned the serial port and adopted the RJ-45 jack. Think you stepped a bit outside your bounds simplifying the complexity of IP6 implementation with to days solutions. Does your provider even make IP6 an option to host this content? Keep up the great work, it is appreciated, just don’t forget that is just isn’t audio only. You seem to get that with the great images with your narrative. Do you do any work with television, cell, telco, etc, they are all electronic coms, are they not? There is data transmitted & received, power consumed, heat generated, shelter required and are all relevant to radio, tv, telco, intranet, cell, etc. Do you take submissions?
Sorry, next time I’ll go a little more in depth
Unfortunately, you way under-estimated the complexities of an IPv4 to IPv6 transition. Most stuff will not “just work”. I have yet to see a home router that has provisions for IPv6, and few if any providers are offering it. Even the core equipment of the internet, where providers talk to each other, often doesn’t speak IPv6 at present. You will also find that much of your other network speaking equipment, such as fileservers, media players, cable boxes, etc., do not speak IPv6.
In broadcasting, you should be checking how many of your internet connected devices work with IPv6. If your transmitter is network controlled, does it speak
IPv6? What about other devices in your stations? Does your IP phone system do it? Does your external network connection provide it? How about all the desktop PCs? (I know that XP has problems with DNS name resolution in V6, requiring an external v6 to v4 translator, or v4 address servers.) Does your station stream to the net? Does that streaming work with IPv6. Even small things, like the time servers that keep your PC’s (hopefully) in sync probably don’t speak v6.
There are lots of things to do to make IPv6 happen. Lots of stuff will have to hit the can, as it won’t work with it, and the vendors will no longer be supporting the old firmware in it. It may well be a good deal harder than the digital television transition.
Okay, so this article is a sinker. I’ll do better next time.
Ten years on, it might be worth revisiting the IPv4 vs IPv6 topic.